Pull the look together with the right accessories — and type

You're off to a good start with your brochures. All have interesting topics and much potential. Here's some things to keep in mind while you're designing your layouts.

Make it easy for your reader to navigate your document -- show them where to start and end reading, and arrange information in a clear and logical way. Create headings that introduce sections or topic and make finding information easy. Assume your reader knows nothing about your topic, so make sure that everything is fully explained.

When creating your brochure – or any layout, for that matter – create unity of design by limiting the typefaces you use. Using many different typefaces and styles confuses the reader. If you use only two or three typefaces you create a sense of unity throughout the layout and guide your reader through all the important information you have to communicate.

Here are a couple of examples from a past class. Which do you think achieves the goals outlined above? How could they be improved?

Text styles and sizes create a hierarchy of information – just like in a traditional outline – so that your reader will know what is most important. Headings (headlines) tell the reader about the information that follows. Subheadings break the information down further. The Text contains the details.

Bonus Tips: 
Bullets • • • • • • • 
Dashes — – — – — 
and Hyphens - - - - -


Bullets, typographically speaking, create a professional looking list:

• List item number one
• List item number two
• List item number three
• List item number four

Here are two ways to achieve bulleted lists.

(1) Type Option + 8. I remember it because asterisks (*) look something like a bullet (•). This works in InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. Add a space between the bullet and the following text (just like a space between words).

(2) InDesign has a groovy Bullet List feature. Select the text that is your list, go to Type Menu>Bulleted and Numbered Lists. You also have the option of creating Numbered Lists. This feature automatically adds space between the text and bullet.

Dashes and hyphens are often misidentified and wrongly used interchangeably.

Hyphens break a whole word (as when a word is too long to fit onto a line and it's broken to wrap onto the next line) or join two words into a compound word (as in "long-time friend"). The dash/underscore key is between the zero key and the plus/minus key.

Dashes are a separation between words or concepts, such as this:

The Elements of Typographic Style recommends the more concise spaced en dash – like so – and argues that the length and visual magnitude of an em dash "belongs to the padded and corseted aesthetic of Victorian typography."

There are two types of dashes: the n-dash and the m-dash. The n-dash is option key + hyphen key,  the m-dash is shift+option+hyphen. N-dashes are acceptable for most dashed text. Read the link above on dashes to get a better idea of when to use n- or m-dashes.